Revitalizing A Town

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Now that you have compiled a list together of some of your top picks of licensed & insured contractors that meet all of the essential criteria for your potential project, you can start looking a little bit closer at your choices and begin narrowing down even further.

Get to know them Personally

Assuming that the teams that made it on your list that you have compiled meets all of the necessary requirements, you can begin talking to and getting to know these contractors on a more personal level to help you with your decisions.

Remember what we talked about last time, any hopes of revitalization for any area or project is only going to be as successful as the team that you hire to do the actual construction. This is why it helps to get to know the teams that you want to hire and somewhat use a little bit of intuition or gut feeling by feeling them out.

This is where you want to look at all of the paperwork in person and in great detail to make sure that everything checks out and you are dealing with an honest contractor. If they are hesitant to answer any questions or reluctant to show any paperwork at all, then it is time to cross them off the list.

Keep in mind that these sort of projects generally take months, and even years to complete so you want to make sure you hire a team that you can handle working with for such a long stretch of time.

We touched on a very important topic yesterday is regards to getting investors on board with any major project and what you should expect to prepare for in order to do so.

Assuming you prepared your investors’ dream presentation by addressing any and all of their concerns and they are on board, you can begin networking out to contractors and start getting a plan together.

Using your Resources

Living in this modern day and age where the internet and other various technological resources are common practice, you have the world at your fingertips in regards to building relationships with reputable contractors to carry out the work. You should start by exploring all of your options and don’t be afraid to be picky when it comes to hiring a team of contractors for any project.

For example, using websites and directories like here at AGC is a great way to being compiling a list of some of the most reputable contracting companies for any specific area. Start by doing a little research on as many of them as you can and get an idea of your options.

You become the Investor

At the end of the day, the contractors and agencies that you hire are ultimately responsible for making your vision come to fruition. All of your great ideas and concepts for revamping any specific area are only as good as the contractors that you decide to hire.

When you are searching for your “dream team,” put yourselves in the shoes of your investors. You are trying to sell them on their return and this is exactly what you should be hearing from potential contractors because you are ultimately investing in the work that they do for you.

We can take a look here at http://www.stcharlesroof.com/ as an example of what I mean by a reputable, licensed & insured contractor. Once the imperative criteria is met for your list of choices (which can be seen with the example), you can begin the face-to-face interaction process and start narrowing down even further which I will talk about next.

Needless to say, revamping any economy is no small task and will require an enormous amount of time, energy, and resources that all parties will have to consider before any talk of implementation can begin. The parties that I am referring to are your development team, the investors and elected officials, and the community.

Before you begin any sort of talk in regards to beginning a project, your investors and stakeholders are going to want more than just every single element laid out for them in precise, clear, and intricate detail. This however, is obviously extremely important and I really shouldn’t have to delve into more detail on this factor.

What some may overlook is that your investors are going to want to hear even more about how this is going to benefit them and make their huge investment worthwhile.

Let us be honest here.

Investors aren’t in this out of the kindness of their hearts.

Now I am not an investor myself, but I know for a fact that if I was I would want to be educated on all aspects of the project and have detailed information on what I am going to be getting in return.

Click here to learn more about what it is that investors want to know before they start pouring money into a project and put yourself in their shoes while reading this information.

These are the kinds of questions you are going to have to prepare for over and over again to have any chances of gaining the trust and confidence of your potential investors.

In today’s day and age, looks go a long way. This is true for a very large number of things and this applies to towns, cities, and countries across the world. This may seem shallow but remember the question that I proposed you ask yourself when analyzing a certain area, “would I bring my family here?”

Safety is Priority #1

This question goes further than simply wanting some family photographs to come out looking pretty. This question encompasses many different factors but the most important one is the safety of you and your family.

When we look at areas that we are trying to develop economically like Nièvre, we want everyone that enters the region to feel completely safe and comfortable while they are there.

Again being realistic, there are a number of factors that will turn people away from an area and make them feel unsafe or uncomfortable being there. One of the biggest things that can lead to this outcome is the overall appearance and look of the area in general.

This is why revitalizing any economic region begins with the reconstruction of many of the buildings, homes, and businesses. This is no easy task however and is a huge investment for any elected official or stakeholder to make so you want to make sure you have a definitive plan of attack before you propose anything to anyone.

The principles that I talked about on my last post which governed Fibre-Active back when they were working with Nièvre were taken word for word from our old campaign strategy and might be little difficult to grasp for those who might not have a general understanding of an economic development agency.

This is the main reason I decided to create this page and try to help explain things in more ‘lamens terms’ so that anyone can understand these concepts.

If I could sum up the general mission of Fibre-Active, and all development agencies for that matter, it would have to be attempting to create an environment that will attract and excite people to be a part of. I understand that this is a very general statement and this is much easier said than done, but that’s why I am taking the time to lay some of these ideas out this format.

When I look at a city or area as a whole from the outside I generally ask myself this question:

“Would I want to take my family on a weekend getaway here?”

If the answer is no, then this is where a team like Fibre-Active comes in and implements a plan of attack to turn that answer around.

This is where the whole economic development process begins and let me be the one to tell you, it is no simple process.

Just to give you a little overview of what Fibre-Active was hired to do, I wanted to share the main principles behind the agency when they were hired for Nièvre.

The redefinition of the missions of “the Development Agency of Nièvre Economy” materialized June 28, 2002 by the birth of “active fibre.” For the first time in France, an economic development agency gave an identity through a trademark and a specific name: active fibre.

Three founding principles governed the birth of the active fibre concept:

“The Willingness of Elected Officials and Stakeholders”

It is indeed a voluntary approach expressed in the first place by Marcel Charmant, Chairman of the General Council of Nièvre. But it is also the will of all the founding members of active fibre of which the Board was deliberately composed of 27 members representing corporations:

The General Council

Local authorities (Agglomeration Community of Communities and Country)

The inter consular

National companies responsible implanted in the Nièvre

And as associate members, partners of state services and administration

“Mobilizing for the Future”

In this expression, though all the determination we understand that characterizes the will of our members. Their conviction that economic development is mainly the result of the mobilization, in the same direction, all the energies of the actors of a territory.

“In a partnership inter tool”

One can indeed convince outside the territory, the territorial Nièvre offers a tempting destination that insofar as the territorial marketing of the vision of our department is shared by all its actors. The active fibre concept was wanted to create a place for determining the shared vision of the product Nièvre.

Fibre-Active was an economic development agency that I had worked very closely with when they were hired to revitalize Nièvre (named after the river), which is a department near the center of France. For anyone who isn’t familiar with other parts of the world and the way their country is ran, a department is one of the three levels of government that makes up a city or area.

While I was working with Fibre-Active, I learned a lot about what it takes to get an economy going and these are things that I will retain and carry with my for the rest of my life. While I no longer work in France or in the field, I still look back at all of my experiences working with this amazing team and think about how many cities and areas in the United States could implement some of the things I learned and how much of a benefit it could be for these economies and the economy of the country as a whole.

I don’t think I really need to go into too much detail about the benefits of having a thriving economy, as we have all seen the negative effects when our economy took a nose dive just a few years ago.

Although obviously much easier said than done, I would still like to talk about some of the things that I learned and how I think they could be used for areas all over the country.